Travel games are nothing new, I remember as a kid playing checkers on a miniature board in the back of our family van. Travel Guess Who was one of my favorites. Sometimes on a long trip we’d bring a deck of cards, but without fail by the end of our trip we were playing 49 card pickup. It seemed impossible to keep all 52 cards together. Even the well designed travel games had small pieces to lose.  Those travel games are long gone, in my opinion, its a good thing.  No one wants to have loose game pieces to keep track of in the back seat of a car or on an airplane.

Of course as electronics kept on getting smaller and smaller, electronic versions of some of these travel games started popping up, and now we have a plethora of options that offer hours of mindless entertainment. Especially since the launch of the iPhone 3G and the App Store last year.

I can tell you that traveling has not been the same for me during the past year. I have tons of travel game options now. Classics like Connect Four, Yahtzee, Scrabble and Uno, all have resurfaced. Lately my favorite has been Scrabble. Hilarye and I play it together to pass the time in airports and on planes. Its so fun we’ve occasionally caught ourselves wasting an hour or two on a normal weeknight fighting our vocabularies to the death.

If you’re anything like me and need something entertaining to stimulate your mind on the way from here to there, check out what is now available in the travel game marketplace. In the biggest telemarketer voice I have “You’ll be glad you did!”

If you love my blog, which let’s face it you all do, then you will love these other awesome travel blogs. The love to travel is not something that is specific to any gender, race, religion or background.  It is a hobby that is shared all over the world. Because of this on Friday’s I will start to feature other great bloggers so you can expand your horizons and see where other people’s taste for adventure have taken them.

Nomadic Matt is an interesting guy that I’m actually pretty jealous of. After finishing his maters degree he decided to become as puts it a “vagabond” and travel the world. So he quit his job and that’s what he has been doing ever since.  You can read about his journeys, get some awesome travel tips, or just enjoy his photographs.

Traveling the World by the Seat of Our Pants is another great blog you won’t want to miss out on. This fun couple has taken thirteen months off with roughly $28,000 in the bank and is traveling around the world. They are living on a budget of about $2,000 a month and enjoying expiriencing new places and blogging about their adventures.

I know there are two this week but I just couldn’t help it! If you know of an awesome travel blog please email me so I can feature it!

I wish I could sit down and figure out how much time over the past two years I have spent in an airport. I have a love-hate relationship with airports now because of all the quality times we have spent together. Some airports I find endearing while others just the thought of causes me to ball my fist with a sense of fury. I won’t name any names as to not cause any hurt feelings. Although most of the time it wasn’t really the airport itself that caused my anger and hatred. But a well designed airport and its amenities can make a huge difference in the experience of a traveler, especially when the airport is a connection city.

This all came to mind as an airport employee at MSP asked me to participate in a survey (luckily for them they didn’t ask me two days later on my way back through MSP, would have been a totally different survey response!). I would hope all airports would care so much to think about the amenities they offer their travelers and the ease of transition from gate to gate, offering free WIFI, as well as the quality of dining experience and parking facilities. We all know traveling can be such a nightmare so it really is the little things that matter.

It leads me to think about my favorite airports in this country- at least the ones I have been to so far, and how they are all so unique and different. And when you have had as many layovers, delays, bumps, missed connections as I have, you really begin to appreciate them for what they offer.

Three of my favorite Airports:

John Wayne International Airport (SNA): There is much to be desired of this airport when you use it as an alternative to overcrowded, confusing, and sometimes extremely obnoxious LAX. The quiet more relaxed nature of SNA makes it a great airport to fly into and out of easily because it is so small and intimate, plus they have a fantastic candy shop selling gourmet treats. I do however wish it had more of a variety of food options, McDonalds and Starbucks are great but a little more variety would be nice- but it isn’t a connection airport, so it’s really not a necessity.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m told everything is bigger in Texas and while I’m not sure thats entirely true, I can say that their football stadiums are. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting some family in Dallas for the first college football game to take place in the new Cowboy’s Stadium. The new stadium has been the talk of the sports world for the past few months in preparation for its opening and all the chatter does not do it justice. The stadium has an open outdoor feel and is well lit due to the massive windows at both endzones. The seats go up at a steeper incline to give every seat in the house a great view of the field and who can forget to mention the scoreboard? The full HD display is nearly 60 yards long. Its so big, that I couldn’t stop my eyes from drifting from the field to it.

A few words of advice for the stadium. Come early, the stadium fits a bunch of people, but still only has a limited number of doors in. Prepare to pay for parking. There are plenty of parking lots around the stadium for parking. Prime spots go for as much as $75 next to the stadium! Yikes! We shelled out $20 and still had to hike a bit to get to the stadium. Prepare to pay inside as well. New stadiums cost a lot to build and it was surely evident in the prices at concessions. A simple water goes for $5 inside, so bring some cash to satisfy those mid game cravings.

If you’re a football fan, especially if you’re a Cowboy’s fan, make sure to get to the new Cowboy’s Stadium this season.

There is nothing more stressful than making a tight connection. We have all been through it: the stress to grab your bag and run off the airplane, white knuckled as you consider doing a few lunges to prepare your body for that embarrassing sprint through the airport that no-doubtedly ensues. Some people will chuckle to themselves and others will cock their head to the side and give you a sympathetic look because hey they have been there. And for twenty minutes you forget all dignity you once had because if you don’t make this flight you are stuck at the airport for a good five hours or possibly worse- over night.

Is there anything you can do to make sure this never happens to you? No, but there are a few things you can do to help make that connection run a little smoother:

1. Study the airport map and try to get an idea of what terminal and gate you are flying into and where your next flight is leaving from. This will save you a little time as you are already familiar with where you need to go. Usually the inflight magazines have terminal maps in the back of them of their major hubs. Always double check the monitors or with an airline representative as gates are subject to change and they often do.

2. If you are flying into a major connection airport such as ATL, ORD, LAX, etc. always allow yourself at LEAST an hour between flights. Really two hours would be ideal. You never know if your first plane will be delayed and it’s not worth the heart attack or panic that will set in. Plus, it’s always nice to be able to stretch your legs and get a snack in between flights.

Read the rest of this entry »